EUROPEAN BRED OR TRAINED EARNINGS RECORD HOLDERS SINCE THE 1860s. (Must have had first start in Europe)

The record holders are a work in progress and may be altered at any time. I have included separately other horses I have discarded as unlikely to be the leading European earner of their era. Sometimes the difference between making the list and being discarded is only a few thousand GBP. If anyone has evidence of another horse I should consider or if you believe any information is incorrect please let me know.Both Noor and Amerigo raced in England before being sent to USA to race and it is the relatively high USD prizemoney that propelled then to the top of the list. Ditto for Viva Pataca who went to Hong Kong after starting in England.All the leaders foaled after the 1960s race outside Europe. As Frankel (GB) 2008 (who some race as the greatest racehorse ever) did not race far from home he had no chance of being a European earnings leader as prizemoney in England is insufficient to compte with the money on offer in Dubai, Hong Kong, USA, Japan and other countries. Some of the earnings figures I have below vary substantially from those on pedigreequery or wikipedia.British newspapers of the 1950-1960s concentrate on whether the leading earner is trained in the UK and they tend to include Ireland as part of the UK. Roger Mortimer writing in the Times in the early sixties noted that France was sending its second eleven to England as prizemoney in France was far better yet the French second eleven was still superior to the English stayers and something ought to be done about it. One of the horses in the 'discard' list is Bon Mot who only had 3 wins yet there is some suggestion his USD earnings would give him a chance a being the leading earner of his era. While French prizemoney was possibly better than English prizemoney it seems unlikely the figure I have seen is correct.I have seen 'Sea Bird II' spelt a number of different ways and have elected to go with the way it is spelt here because I like it!A separate list of of British and Irish trained leading earners would include some of those in the discard list.Gladiateur is most likely to have earned far more than any European racehorse before him much as Carbine did in Australiasia and as such is, in my opinion, the undisputed record holder of his time.

^ Theatrical's figure relies on an estimate of earnings from one Irish and one German start and some other guesswork as to timing of amounts earned for exchange rate purposes however it is unlikely the figures above are out by more than a few thousand GBP or USD. The USD figure above splits the equibase and pedigreequery career USD figures but that is probably a fluke on my part. ^^ Some guesswork re Miesque's two UK starts but error unlikly to be more that GBP 10,000

According to Allez France’s Wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allez_France : Allez France was the first filly in Thoroughbred horse racing history to earn $1 million, according to the United States National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. However, Sports Illustrated says that Dahlia was "the first filly to win $1 million (just before Allez did it)", and the U.S. National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame contradicts itself by saying that Dahlia was "the first female Thoroughbred to earn $1 million."

She raced in France, 18 times, England twice for 2 seconds in the Champion Stakes and her last race was in the USA in the National Thoroughbred Championship Hcp at Santa Anita over 10f of dirt where she ran 11th of 11. She had never raced on dirt before. I understand this race was being promoted as a big money dirt lead up race to the Washington DC International (it was run the week before) but I have no further information about the race. Allez France competed against Dahlia on 8 occasions (they also raced on the same date as 2YOs but possibly in different races) and on each of those 8 occasions Allez France beat Dahlia home. Allez France won seven of them. The closest Dahlia came was a second in the Prix de Diane. The only time Allez France did not win the race in which both competed was the 1975 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe where she finished fifth (as defending champion) to Dahlia’s 15th.

Even though Allez France had one race in the USA her career summary record does not appear on equibase.com.

Her career summary and race record (limited details)does appear on ‘france-galop.com’ in euros not French francs even though the franc was the currency at the time she raced. From looking at a number of horse earnings details from the pre euro period (pre 1 January 1999) it seems all pre 1 January 1999 French francs amounts of ‘france-galop’ were converted to euros at the rate of €1 = 6.55957FF which was the agreed rate on the introduction of the Euro on 1 January 1999. As the euro did not exist when Allez France raced there is no rate of exchange to work out her earnings in other currencies so I have converted the euros back to French francs first. Ditto for Dahlia.

According to Wikipedia, ‘pedigreequery’ and ‘amercanclassicpedigrees’ Allez France career earnings were USD 1,386,146. She is not inducted into the US National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame although her trainer for 1974 and 1975 Angel Penna was inducted and it is under his bio that the reference to her becoming the first mare to win USD 1,000,000 is made.

Doing the best I can with the limited information at my fingertips I have her career earnings as follows:France earnings in FRF: FRF 5,996,650 (Starts 18: 13-1-1-3)England earnings in GBP: GBP 23,859.00 (Starts 2: 0-2-0-0)United States earnings in USD: USD 0.00 (Starts 1: 0-0-0-1)

I have converted these amounts to calculate worldwide earnings into FRF, USD, GBP and AUD amounts as follows:FRF 6,232,244.70USD 1,361,871.54GBP 570,015.08AUD 980,494.42

(This is based on Reserve Bank of Australia (rba.gov.au.statistics/…) monthly exchange rates as published for the month the race for USD and GBP amounts and annual rates at PACIFIC Exchange Rate Service http://fx.sauder.ubc.ca to convert to FRF amounts to USD first before converting into other currencies. During the period both horses raced currency rates were fixed by governments but there were ‘unofficial’ rates offered by banks. World governments were considering moving to the floating rates we are familiar with today which happened later. Reuters were publishing daily rates during this period but they do not appear to be on the internet.)

Amazingly my USD figure is close to the USD 1,386,146 other sources quote.

Even though she couldn’t beat Allez France at home she had a fantastic international career winning two King George’s and a Washington DC International among her 10 Group 1 wins as well as winning a Canadian International (then a Group 2 race). Dahlia ran twice on dirt in the USA but was not placed among the 13 starts she had in the US in 1976 as a six year old. (Allez France retired after her five year old season.)

I have converted these amounts to calculate worldwide earnings into FRF, USD, GBP and AUD amounts on the same basis as for Allez France (using annual rates for FRF, CAD and ITL amounts (IEP = GBP then) to arrive at the following amounts:FRF 7,131,770.85USD 1,541,997.76GBP 673,004.66AUD 1,112,618.20

My USD figure is close enough to the ‘equibase.com’ figure of USD 1,489,105 to suggest that I am in the ball park. As one might expect the US National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame total is the same as the ‘equibase.com’ total.

Dahlia’s 1973 earnings -

The major difference between my figure and the ‘equibase.com’ figure is Dahlia’s 1973 earnings which I have at USD 587,789 and equibase.com has at USD 541,577 so some further work required here.

A possible reason for the difference is the amount of French francs earned by Dahlia in winning the Prix St Alary (G1) at Longchamp on 20 May 1973. ‘france-galop’ has earnings of EUR 71,834 which equates to FRF 471,200 while ‘galop-seiger’ has first prize as FRF 350,000. If FRF 350,000 is plugged into the calculations the USD total falls to USD 1,514,778 a reduction of USD 27,218.

The million dollar milestone

If first prize for the Prix St Alary is FRF 471,200 then:

- Dahlia passed the USD 1,000,000 total on 20 August 1974 when she won Benson & Hedges Gold Cup (G1) at Yorkt - Allez France passed USD 1,000,000 total on 6 October 1974 when she won the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (GI) at Longchamp .

If first prize for the Prix St Alary is FRF 350,000 the answer is still the same albeit the margin for error is only about USD 3,000.

If the benchmark was set at FRF 5,000,000 Allez France exceeded that total on 6 October 1974 and Dahlia six days later.

If the benchmark was set at GBP 500,000 Dahlia exceeded that total on 9 November 1974 whereas Allez France took until 4 May 1975.

I need some more information before I can publish detailed race records.

Australia and New Zealand seem to be the only major racing countries that include the value of trophies in their career earnings figures. Winx has earned AUD 647,150 in trophies to date. The British do not include bonuses whereas the Americans do. Winx earned AUD 30,000 in BOBS bonuses as a 2YO which is trivial compared to the several million some horses have earned (eg Fantastic Light (USA) 1996) (equibase.com (USA) included the bonuses whereas racingpost.com (Britain) did not).

In Australia we now have the ridiculous situation where a horse’s New South Wales earnings are counted after amounts are deducted for jockey and equine welfare whereas in Victoria the gross amount is included in a horse’s earnings before the deduction is made.

I have updated the list of European bred or trained leading money earners since the 1960s. Noor (IRE) 1945 is the big mover. He won a bundle in the USA which meant giving Tulyar and Ribot the boot from the list. They now appear in the discards list. According to one report I read the Aga Khan only sold Noor to the USA because an American wanted to buy another horse he owned and the Aga Khan said he can only have the one he wanted if he took Noor as well. Noor's complete race record has been posted under race records of international champions and I assume tontonan has supplied the photo.

I have updated "EUROPEAN BRED OR TRAINED EARNINGS RECORD HOLDERS SINCE THE 1860s." to include as a subtitle "(Must have had first start in Europe)". This means Viva Pataca (GB) 2002 (late Comic Strip) falls between Fantastic Light and Cirrus des Aigles. This also means Makybe Diva can never be considered a European.

I have included Exceller (USA) 1973 in the list of European earnings record holders. He had his first 15 starts in France and England and he won three group 1 races in France and one group 1 in England by July 1977. Around this time he was entered in the 1977 Melbourne Cup where was given 62.5kg. Instead of coming to Melbourne he was sent to the North America to race. His first start was a second in October 1977 in the grade 1 Man O'war Stakes. At his next start he won the grade 1 Canadian International in late October 1977 before running third in the 1977 Washington DC International . He won a further six grade 1 races in 1978 including the Hollywood Gold Cup and the Jockey Club Gold Cup.

I have included Lando (GER) 1990 in the list of leading European stake winners which came as a surprise. My British pounds and US dollar earnings are broadly in line with the earnings of racingpost and equibase respectively. The total earnings on galopp-seiger and wikipedia for earnings in euros/marks and euros respectively seem to be wrong but are not relevant to my main analysis in GBP and USD.

Included below is a table of prizemoney paid in JPY (Japanese yen) to the top 5 in the Japan Cup for the 1988 to 2018 years the years for which jbis.jp (Japan Bloodstock Information Services) published earnings (Japan Cup first run in 1981). The amounts do not include trophies which are not included by jbis. I have collated this information for future readers to provide an accurate earnings record and to explain why the amounts converted to foreign currency for use in foreign records can vary wildly from a simple currency conversion undertaken at the Japan Cup race date.

I have picked three Japan Cup results published by racingpost.com to illustrate the problem:

1. Singspiel earned JPY 135,612,000 for winning the 1996 Japan Cup. 'racingpost' calculated that Singspiel had earned £1,073,993 for first in 1996 whereas I have calculated he earned £721,411 (using Reserve Bank of Australia daily rates to calculate the appropriate cross rate) or 48.87% less . This is the most extreme example of an overstatement. Year on year currency fluctuations seem to account for 20-25% of the difference. I do not have a copy of the 1996 International Cataloguing Standards book (if one exists) to assist with the analysis.

2. The 2001 International Cataloguing Standards book ('the book'), published prizemoney for the first time for the Japan Cup in both USD and JPY and set out the exchange rates it had used in converting JPY to USD, GBP, AUD and other currencies for racing prizemoney offered around the world. Jungle Pocket earned JPY 253,864,000 in 2001 which racingpost calculated was equal to £1,457,524. The book did not publish a rate for JPY to GBP so I infer racingpost first converted JPY into USD and then converted USD into GBP in accordance with the rates in the book (creating a JPY to GBP cross rate). Using Reserve Bank of Australia daily indicator rates to calculate a JPY to GBP cross rate appropriate to race date I have calculated the horse earned £1,466,699 a less than 1% difference. The closeness of the racingpost figure to a figure using current exchange rates can be attributed to the fact that the USD appreciated against both the JPY and GBP by just over 6% and 5% respectively over the figures published in the book effectively cancelling out all but about a 1% change in the JPY to GBP notional cross rate I assume was used by racingpost.

3. In 2008 Screen Hero earned JPY 253,864,000 for first and racingpost reported a first prize of £1,141,577. Using Reserve Bank of Australia daily indicator rates to calculate the appropriate cross rate I have calculated the horse earned £1,731,776 or 34% more. The notional cross rate at the time of the race using Reserve Bank of Australia daily indicator rates was JPY 146.59 to GBP 1.00 whereas the I January 2003 notional cross rate derived from the 2008 International Cataloguing Standards book was JPY 222.9 to GBP 1.00 and I assume this rate, or a rate close to it, was used by racingpost.

I have assumed that racingpost picked up the correct Japanese yen earnings and there are no other reasons for differences such as typos.

For the 31 years (1988 and 2018) of Japan Cup results surveyed the racingpost GBP prizes varied up or down from the race date conversion by: less than 5% 10 between 5-10% 6 between 10% -20% 5 between 20% -30% 4 between 30% -40% 3 more than 40% 3

Because of the high value of international Japanese race prizemoey the results reported 'officially' can vary widely from the real result. Many of the big international prizemoney races are run in October and November around the world and 'official' conversion races set on 1 January can be very misleading. According to my observations the exchange rate variations have fed into conversions used by racing bodies in Australia, USA, France and other media at least in the 1980s and 1990s. I observe that galopp-seiger.de reports all results in foreign currency and they have not joined the frenzy of other European on-line publishers in the euro currency area of rewriting all pre euro results into euros (very orwellian) sometimes with marvellous inaccuracy (one irish website in particular comes to mind).

Other Japan Cup prizemoney issues: 'racingpost' reported prizemoney down to ninth place in 2008 and 2009 whereas jbis did not record any prizemoney beyond fifth place money in any of the 1988 to 2018 years. The JRA currently offers Japan Cup sixth to tenth placegetters 'participation incentive money' however this is not recorded as prizemoney by jbis. After 2009 racingpost only reported first to fifth prizemoney consistent with the jbis approach to prizemoney.